The liminality of open space and rhythms of the everyday in Jallah Town,Monrovia,Liberia

Abstract

Chinese

Recent work in African urbanism conceptualises the African city as a metropolis in flux characterised by interconnected mobilities and heterogeneity, in contrast with the dichotomous construction of public versus private space common in development and planning discourse. Instead, open spaces are not purely private nor merely public but can be understood as liminal spaces, produced through the mobilities and rhythms that are constitutive of this urbanity in flux. A fine-grained study of activities and movements in such liminal urban space in the informal settlement of Jallah Town, Monrovia, Liberia, conducted over the course of two months in 2013, suggests that open spaces in this settlement are both heterogeneous and unstable, traced by fluctuating and porous boundaries between complex spatialities that serve multiple, age- and gender-contingent roles. By incorporating GIS-based spatial analysis with rhythmanalysis informed by phenomenological methods, these spatialities emerge as purposefully developed by residents and central to the reproduction of mobilities, rhythms and social networks constitutive of African urbanism. Such fine-grained analysis, in turn, serves to inform democratic and situated urban design and planning practices, especially in informal communities typically dismissed as irregular and illegal.

Keywords

Africa informality mobilities public space rhythmanalysis

Introduction

The African city has been imagined as a metropolis in flux, where bodies are constantly moving to ‘manifold rhythms’ (Mbembe and Nuttall, 2004: 360) across topographies characterised by discontinuities and contrasts, where everyday life is traced through flexible, negotiated and pragmatic mobilities (Urry, 2000). The rapid ‘informalisation’ of African cities and the introduction of new governance actors (Lindell, 2008) has led to a vast diversity of negotiated governance structures and geographies which cannot be easily classified as formal or informal (Büscher, 2012; Potts, 2011), requiring us to comprehend the African city as a heterogeneous product of overlapping spaces labeled as formal and informal (Schmidt, 2005).

In the following article, we seek to contribute to the understanding of open space in fostering these rhythms and mobilities and this overlapping of the formal and informal in the African city. We do this by presenting a study of movements and encounters in an informal settlement in Monrovia, Liberia, where the rhythms of everyday life play out in open spaces that fall in-between dichotomous definitions of public and private (e.g. Banerjee, 2001; Oldenburg, 1999): streets, street corners, voids between buildings, markets and ‘third places’ (Oldenburg, 1999) such as those produced by market stalls and the carts of street vendors.

In our essay, we conceptualise these open spaces as ‘liminal’ urban geographies; i.e. spaces that constitute thresholds between the public and the private, simultaneously providing a means for regulation and agency (Hall, 2007; Matthews, 2003; Matthews et al., 2000; Wood, 2012) while facilitating the ‘incessant circulation of goods, services, ideas, technologies, imaginaries and money’ that characterise the African city (Edjabe and Pieterse, 2011: 5). We posit that these ‘liminal’ geographies serve to foster ‘dynamic exchange and interchange’ (Hall, 2007: 12), thus constituting the threads and knots in the spatial fabric that link the multiple materialities, characters and activities of the African city.

We also seek to contribute to ethnographically grounded open space research in African urbanism, exemplified by such work as Dierwechter’s (2004, 2006) ethnographies of neglected spatialities and informal sector retailing in Cape Town, South Africa; Young’s (2003) work on street children in Kampala, Uganda; Moyer’s (2003, 2005) ethnographic work on street life in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Myers’ (e.g. 2010) work on place-making in Zanzibar; and Pellow’s (2001) study of the relationship between space and culture in Accra, Ghana. However, we explicitly emphasise the articulations between movement and urban form, focusing in particular on encounters and trajectories in liminal space to better understand the role of everyday rhythms and uses of open space in the African city (Oranratmanee and Sachakul, 2014; see also Shaw and Hudson, 2009). The goal is to inform urban planning and design approaches that are socially contextualised and grounded in the everyday (Pieterse, 2010; see also Landman, 2016). That is to say, we seek to conceptualise forms of planning and design, which respect daily rhythms as a creative act of negotiating territory, and which are respectful of the ‘collective … response to a condition of “situated multiplicity”, the thrown togetherness of bodies, mass and matter, and of many uses and needs in a shared physical space’ (Amin, 2008: 8).

The research presented here derives from two months of ethnography and daily fine-grained mapping in Jallah Town, an informal settlement¹ of between 5000 and 7000 residents founded in the 1960s on the edge of a mangrove swamp on the eastern edge of the peninsula that constitutes Monrovia, Liberia. The field research in 2013 was preceded by the second author’s work in Monrovia as a consultant architect and urban researcher for UNICEF, the World Bank and the Liberian Ministry of Education starting in 2008. In our analysis, we draw on ethnographic and phenomenological methods informed by rhythmanalysis (Simpson, 2012), which foreground the social contexts and meanings of movements and encounters. We couple these qualitative approaches with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) modeling and space syntax analysis (Hillier, 1989), which together allow us to quantify and model the spatial morphologies of Jallah Town and develop cartographic representations of movements at different scales.

Spatial morphology, as defined by Julienne Hanson, is the study of pattern and form (Hanson, 2001) through such means as space syntax analysis. The patterns that emerge through space syntax analysis represent the ‘cognitive level of urban space,’ or ‘where “people in the street” experience the city’ (Marcus and Colding, 2014). Thus, while GIS can furnish an analysis of the city as layered systems, space syntax analysis reveals urban morphologies and patterns of built form, which in turn enable us to interpret the city from the experiential perspective and via the movements of the individual (Batty, 2005). However, while spatial morphology and space syntax analysis allow for empirical modeling of movement patterns, these methods exclude the more intangible meanings of movement. Because of this, we couple our space syntax analysis with phenomenological approaches from the field of rhythmanalysis, which aim to explore how cities are always in flux and are produced through rhythmic patterns of encounters and interactions (Simpson, 2012). Phenomenologically inspired rhythmanalysis provides the necessary interpretive tools to better reveal the meanings of everyday encounters, trajectories and appropriations of space, in part by encouraging personal descriptions and analysis of the intangible emotions and affects that are attached to places (Seamon, n.d.). By integrating our space syntax analysis with phenomenological strategies, we seek to avoid the ‘over-emphasis of morphological and symbolic components’ common in studies of open space and place-making (Aravot, 2002: 206; see also Wunderlich, 2008) and, in doing so, to refine and complicate our understanding of spatialities and mobilities in liminal space in a Monrovian informal settlement.

We begin by tracing the productive connections between recent critical work in public space theory in order to contextualise our study of liminal space in Monrovia. This leads to a discussion of the contributions of rhythmanalysis to the study of mobilities and open space research, which is followed by an explication of our research design, including our field observations and GIS-based space syntax analysis. We then review the urban geographies and morphologies of informality in Monrovia before describing the ‘time-space rhythms’ (Buttimer, 1976: 290) in one particular liminal space in Jallah Town through a series of analytical maps and empirical findings of activities and movements. We conclude with a few reflections about the implications of this study for open space research, in particular the debates surrounding heterogeneities and mobilities in the African city.

Mobilities and rhythms in neglected spaces

The emphasis on heterogeneity and flux in recent conceptualisations of the African city have emerged in conjunction with a critique of dichotomous constructions of ‘informality’ and the ‘slum’ (e.g. Bertelsen et al., 2014; Mbembe, 2001), which can be traced to the colonisation period (Konadu-Agyemang, 1991; Myers, 2011; Schmidt, 2005), where urban planning served to support ‘the intentions and aspirations’ of colonial powers (Beeckmans, 2013: 261; see also Drakakis-Smith, 2000; Konadu-Agyemang, 1991; Myers, 2003, 2011; Radoki, 2006; Todes, 2011; Watson, 2009). Early planning in Africa tended to draw on a ‘functionalist’ approach (Todes, 2011: 117) to support a ‘segregationist agenda’ among the principal colonial powers (Beeckmans, 2013: 617; see also Bryceson, 2012; Watson, 2009), and comprehensive spatial planning with its penchant for strict boundary-making is still dominant in African cities and informality is still commonly seen as a threat to both individuals and to cities (Huchzermeyer, 2009).

In the case of Monrovia, 70% of Monrovia’s population lives in settlements that are considered ‘informal’ (UN HABITAT, 2003; see also UN HABITAT, 2008). These settlements remain excluded from urban governance, they are underserved by municipal housing, land, infrastructure and environmental sanitation programs (McAuslan, 2011; Mensah, 2006), and residents live under constant threat of eviction (Williams, 2011). However, the boundaries between the formal and informal are not clear-cut, requiring us to comprehend the African city as an assemblage of urban infrastructures built ‘among residents seemingly marginalized from and immiserated by urban life’ (Simone, 2004: 407). In Jallah Town, for example, most of the newer residents are renters, while some of the earliest settlers have secured land tenure and accumulated enough capital to build rental units. Other, newer residents commonly ‘squat’ in abandoned buildings. This understanding of the African city as fragmenting and ‘splintering’ (Graham and Marvin, 2001), in turn, introduces a new query regarding the networks and mobilities that connect these heterogeneous multiplicities ‘of social forms and interlaced boundaries that, though only partially connected, are nevertheless entangled in myriad ways’ (Mbembe and Nuttall, 2004: 352).

We suggest that such a charting of movements and encounters is particularly important in the ‘neglected’ spaces (Amin and Thrift, 2002) whose social topographies are central to the interconnected and heterogeneous African city. The geographies of such ‘neglected’ (Carmona, 2010; see also Sennett, 1990; Shields, 1991; Zukin, 1991) or ‘third places’ (Oldenburg, 1999) are of particular interest because they facilitate everyday connections (Hannam et al., 2006), allow for the production of shared meanings (Knox, 2005) and ‘serve as indispensable assets in the economic livelihood and social/cultural reproduction of a vast segment of the urban population’ (Bayat, 2009: 20; see also Bayat and Biekart, 2009). Since these ambiguous spaces are everywhere they facilitate the reclamation of the everyday, producing zones ‘of social transition and possibility with the potential for new social arrangements and forms of imagination’ (Crawford, 2005: 9). That is to say, these geographies are also politically significant because their very ordinariness masks their transformative potential.

To conduct a rigorous charting of micro-mobilities (van Blerk, 2013) in such ambiguous spaces, we approach walking as a form of tactical practice ‘in space-time (where one becomes) immersed in temporal continuums of social everyday life activities’ (Wunderlich, 2008: 126). Conceptualising the ‘tactical agency’ (Klaeger, 2013) of walking as one of the ‘innumerable practices by means of which users reappropriate’ (de Certeau, 1984: xiv) space, we understand walking as intrinsic to the makings of liminal geographies in Jallah Town. However, in order to critically assess the significance of the rhythms of walking in this particular open space, we draw on the analytical framework of rhythmanalysis. Closely associated with the ‘mobilities’ paradigm in the social sciences (Urry, 2000; see also Hannam et al., 2006; Pafka, 2013), rhythmanalysis can be understood as ‘a tool’ for analysis (Elden, 2004: xii) of the interrelationships between the ‘temporal and spatial dimensions of everyday life’ (Moore, 2013: 61).

Rhythmanalysis is inspired by Lefebvre’s (2004) concepts of linear versus cyclical time. To Lefebvre, ‘linear’ time produces mechanical rhythms imposed ‘from social practice’ (Lefebvre, 2004: 5); i.e. rhythms that are ‘acquired, rational, and in a sense abstract and antinatural’ (Lefebvre, 2002: 49) and which therefore serve to reproduce dominant socio-temporal relations. On the other hand, ‘cyclical’ time is based in the ‘natural’ (Lefebvre, 2002: 49) and produces qualitative, irregular social rhythms. Cyclical time, then, can be understood as associated with intersubjective, daily activities through which place and community are produced, such as the daily rhythms of the particular liminal open space in Jallah Town.

As yet, it is unclear how researchers should ‘actually do rhythmanalysis or what techniques could be employed in maintaining this sort of disposition’ (Simpson, 2012: 425). Similarly, little research has been conducted to document ‘actual, specific, everyday practices and performances’ from the perspective of rhythmanalysis (Simpson, 2008: 813). In the following, we attempt to address this lacuna in rhythmanalysis by presenting an empirical, spatial analysis of everyday movements and built form while, at the same time, viewing these movements ‘through the lens of the Rhythmanalyst’ (Simpson, 2008: 813). In doing so, we draw on interpretive forms of analysis from the field of phenomenology, which, we argue, resonate with rhythmanalysis in its emphasis on the relationship between time and space in everyday life. In the words of Buttimer, phenomenological research seeks to ‘illuminate the personality of place which (emerges) from shared human experiences and the time-space rhythms deliberately chosen to facilitate such experiences’ (Buttimer, 1976: 290). By incorporating phenomenological principles of experience and description with space syntax analysis, we endeavour to reveal how liminal space in Jallah Town is shaped by rhythmic patterns of encounters and movements.

Urban development and morphology of Jallah Town, Monrovia

Liberia traces its origins to the American Colonization Society, formed in 1816 to facilitate the ‘returning’ of slaves from the United States to Africa. The first settlement in current-day Liberia, Monrovia, was named after President James Monroe. In 1847, a constitution based on the United States model was signed inaugurating the new nation (Ellis, 2006). Since its inception, the descendants of these first settlers, known colloquially as Americo-Liberians (Levitt, 2005; Mensah, 2006), have dominated political and economic life in Liberia. Today, restrictions on Liberian citizenship and persistent racial marginalisation remain the subject of acrimonious debate (Konneh, 1996).

Only two of Liberia’s presidents have been of indigenous decent, including Samuel Doe who claimed power in a military coup in 1980, killing President Tolbert and his entire Cabinet. This coup led to 13 years of bloody civil war which decimated the nation’s infrastructure and governance structure (Ellis, 2006; Mensah, 2006); undermined institutional systems, community cohesion and familial networks (King and Samii, 2014); and prompted a refugee flow from rural areas that swelled the population of Monrovia from 600,000 to more than one million (Munive, 2013; Pinera and Reed, 2009; Williams, 2011) which, in turn, led to land disputes and a lingering risk of violence (Munive, 2013).

First settled in the 1960s, the informal settlement of Jallah Town sits on a narrow strip of land between a cliff and the Mesurado mangrove swamp (Figure 1). Due to the influx of new settlers during the civil war (Pinera and Reed, 2009), all the solid ground in Jallah Town was soon occupied and residents began to infill the swamp using gravel, sand and left-over construction materials to create what they refer to as their own, ‘new land’. In these areas reclaimed from the mangrove swamp, water remains a concern: well water is brackish and non-potable, and drinking water can only be purchased at one location or in small plastic bags from vendors circulating through the community. Simultaneously, several water tanks that were built by UNICEF sit unused since no funding or technical assistance were provided for replenishment and maintenance. Sanitation services in Jallah Town are severely limited; there is only one private medical clinic which is open only part of the day; and there are merely three primary schools, all of which are private and accessible only to a few who can afford it.

Figure 1.

Perspective of Jallah Town and site surveyed in relation to Capitol Hill in Monrovia, Liberia.

However, this narrative of Jallah Town obscures the agency of residents in developing their community through what Bayat refers to as ‘quiet encroachment’ (Bayat, 2009) in order to cope with their ‘illegal’ position on the margins of the formal city. That is to say, Jallah Town did not develop with an urban plan but with intentionality; residents developed an urban morphology explicitly designed to facilitate mobility and circulation, both by vehicles and on foot, producing an urban infrastructure that facilitates a ‘diffuse array of relationships between people, markets of exchange, occult imaginings, and temporary alliances and enmities, (and where movement) replaces identification as the locus of production and political participation’ (Hoffman, 2007: 406).

The urban morphology of Jallah Town centers on the paved Jallah Town Road, a busy commercial strip with markets, bars and stores. Jallah Town Road, once defining the edge of the swamp, is now the principal east-west artery and also constitutes a social boundary. On the older, more consolidated southern side of Jallah Town Road, residents live on ‘solid’ rock outcropping and are considered better off than residents on the north side of the road who live in the in-filled swamp (see map of Monrovia in Figure 1). The density of structures and movements is relatively high on the southern side of the road, while the more recently settled side of the road fronting the swamp reflects a less regular and more dispersed building pattern. In lieu of state service provision on the swamp side of the road, residents have left room between homes to facilitate water run-off and developed culverts to protect against flooding. Residents have built communal latrines along the swamp edge, which are open to the general public. Thus residents have, over time, developed a complex assemblage of liminal spaces which are simultaneously public and private, and which, in turn, facilitate the rhythms of everyday practices and mobilities of Jallah Town.

Rhythmanalysis in Jallah Town

One distinct element of the spatial morphology of Jallah Town is the clustering of homes in family enclaves defined by separate indigenous ethnic identities, a socio-spatial feature which is characteristic of African cities (Pellow, 2001; Schmidt, 2005). Homes are typically clustered around a small, central path or space which is used for a multitude of group functions – for informal meetings, to care for children, to cook, to eat, for pedestrian mobility – and which therefore could be presumed to be ‘public’ unless explicitly claimed as private (Lloyd, 2003). However, it is more correct to describe these spaces as neither purely private nor exclusively public, but rather liminal spaces that serve multiple functions and which are always in flux, shifting between private and public realms depending on everyday rhythms and activities.

The site selected for this micro-mobilities study was characteristic of Jallah Town: a central space surrounded by a cluster of homes and used for daily chores, located near common paths of circulation which provided for steady movement of people and encounters (Figure 2; see also Figure 1). Each building surrounding the site was constructed with cement block walls, concrete floors and corrugated metal roofing, ranging in quality from established homes to unpainted apartments that lacked doors and window treatments, and housing approximately 20 residents. Only one home was connected to the electrical grid. The ground between the buildings was hard earth compacted from years of foot traffic, empty except for remnants of foundations from demolished or unfinished buildings, a car parked behind one of the homes and a pile of debris. Six of the 10 buildings on the site were used as apartments where each room was rented out, two buildings housed small convenience stores and two were used by individual families in their entirety.

Figure 2.

The site where field mapping was conducted in Jallah Town, Monrovia, Liberia.

Joshua Palmer conducted the field mapping by tracing all pauses and movements across the space in 10-minute sessions between the hours of 9:30 and 17:00. A total of 37 such 10-minute sessions were recorded by hand in the field, resulting in the documentation of 657 discreet activities and movements. Demographic characteristics, including gender and approximate age, were documented for each person movement. The movement of each person was then classified by activity category, including washing, playing, resting/sleeping, selling and cooking, based on previous research and understanding of everyday rhythms in Jallah Town. Activity categories were defined to aggregate typical, related actions: for instance, the category ‘play’ included games played by both adults and children, while the categories ‘cooking’ and ‘cleaning’ included all activities related to food preparation and laundry, respectively. In addition, 10 residents regularly engaged in casual conversations with Palmer during his field mapping. Of that group, four residents spoke at length on several occasions about their work, their perspectives on security and risk in Jallah Town and the rhythms of everyday life in the community.

Once the field maps were digitised using ArcGIS and individual time instances were overlaid, it became possible to observe patterns in the movements of individuals, which in turn provided the empirical basis for the following rhythmanalysis. In order to characterise types of movements in terms of types of individuals in relationship to built form, we have aggregated our demographic and movement data into four categories: (i) spatialities of stationary activities, (ii) gendered spatialities, (iii) spatialities by age and (iv) typologies of space associated with the daily rhythms in the site. This approach allows us to interpret movements by broad categories of individuals, which in turn permits a deeper analysis of the role of built form in influencing everyday rhythms in the study area without risking design determinism. Furthermore, the broader classification of movement in terms of gender and age corresponds to commonly used categorisation in urban and development studies and allows us to capture the rhythms of clearly distinct population groups. Any further disaggregation would be suspect unless we could supplement our analysis with much more in-depth ethnographic analysis.

Spatialities of stationary activities

Stationary activities included cooking, cleaning, playing, resting, chatting, bathing and others, but for purposes of our rhythmanalysis here we have aggregated the principal activities into three categories: work/chores, playing/talking and resting/relaxing, reflecting the functionality of the space as illustrated in Figure 3. There were 129 observations of residents working or performing chores, compared with 44 playing/talking and 290 resting/relaxing. As mapping was conducted during the rainy season, the number of resting/relaxing activities increased during the afternoon rains when there was hardly any movement through the open space. However, by controlling for the periods of rain, the observations demonstrated clear daily rhythms of stationary activities: play was more frequent at the beginning of the day, then dipped slightly, before rising sharply in the late afternoon from 14:30 to 17:00. Chores were conducted in rhythms that matched those of play. The morning saw few work activities (only 13% of the total chores observed were conducted between 8:00 and 10:50). Then, work activities rose during the late morning and early afternoon (31% of observed chores took place between 11:00 and 13:00), declined to 22% from 13:00 to 14:20 and then rose to 33% from 14:30 to 17:00. Conversely, relaxing and resting activities saw a significant rise from 13:00 to 14:20, the same period when chores and work activities declined.

Figure 3.

Stationary activities mapped and grouped by work/chores, playing/talking and resting/relaxing.

These stationary activities occurred either in what we define as ‘private space’ adjacent to doorways (in the case of the two homes occupied by individual families, stationary activities took place just outside the front doorway), or in ‘semi-private’ yet intensely social space located less than two metres from private residences. Only occasionally did stationary activities spill into the open spaces between the buildings. Playing/talking and resting/relaxing tended to occur in clusters in private space nearest to the buildings, while work/chores activities took place in a few zones of semi-private space adjacent to buildings and in two clusters in open, public space. Semi-private spaces were typically protected from the rain and removed, yet visible, from the main path of travel. Since most of the homes lacked a front door and thus a clear physical boundary to delineate private from public space, semi-private space constituted a buffer sheltering the intimate, protected space within homes and was used by residents to create autonomy yet at the same time maintain social relationships.

Gendered spatialities

During the daytime, when these observations were conducted, semi-private and public space were primarily occupied by women and children as can be noted in the following map of movements by gender (see Figure 4). Of all the observations noted, 59.8% of stationary activities were performed by women, while 41.7% of movements through the site were by women compared to 58.3% for men. During periods of work, women would perform the chores of family life: tending to children, cooking and washing clothes, both in semi-private space near their homes but also in open, public space, where there was direct sun and more room to move about.

Figure 4.

Movement mapped by gender on and through the site.

When men were present in semi-private space, it was typically to rest rather than perform chores. While some men did indeed share household responsibilities, including helping women do the laundry, most men would leave early in the day for work after eating breakfast and spending some time with their children. This gender separation in terms of use of semi-private space can be explained in part through established gender roles, but the apparent gendering of the site may have been exacerbated by the timing of the field mapping. The mapping was typically conducted in the middle of the day during weekdays, when many of the men were working at locations remote from the site.

Spatialities by age

Rhythmanalysis of stationary activities and movements by age highlights a different dimension of private versus semi-private space at the site. For this study, children were defined as between five and 15 years of age; children under five were not typically mobile and were most often in the care of an adult. As apparent in the map of movements by age in Figure 5, children’s movements tended to occur in semi-private space near the home, but often in different zones than those occupied by adults’ stationary activities, and not typically in the private space adjacent to building entrances. Younger adults walked through and around the site with the greatest frequency (the field mapping showed that 40% of those passing directly through the site were ages 20–29), while older adults (30 and older) were more likely to claim the semi-private and private space for stationary activities. Children did not walk all the way across the centre of the open space except in the rare circumstances when they, like adults, were accessing the main road: only 1% of children who moved through the site were on their way somewhere else. Most commonly, children circulated or played within view of adults, and even if they were not given much supervision, they typically remained within these delimited activity zones. This way, children were often at least one turn from the main road, where passersby could be seen as a potential threat.

Figure 5.

Movement mapped by age groups on and through the site.

Our mapping of children’s movements and activities illustrates the importance of the semi-private space as distinct from both the private and the more open, public space. The extension of private space into semi-private space may be important for the social life of children, providing them with a safe space to develop social skills and strengthen community networks. For adults, semi-private space allows them to leave children to play with little supervision while they perform daily chores. In this way, the rhythms of everyday activities resonate between private, semi-private and public space in Jallah Town, reflecting the interconnected mobilities and spatialities of the African city.

Typologies of space

Based on our rhythmanalysis of stationary activities and movements we define four typologies of open space at the site: public, private, semi-private and edge. Public space consists of areas that are open to everyone and used for circulation through an enclave of homes. The interactions in public spaces are brief, mostly limited to casual salutations and short conversations. That is to say, public space is used to maintain connections with other families and with people outside of this cluster of homes, and to stay informed about events and economic opportunities in the rest of Jallah Town and Monrovia. Most movement in public space is attributed to the close proximity of the main road and the function of this space as a path to other clusters of homes. With movement to and from the road removed from the analysis, the public space appears rather deserted except for circulation by children between the homes.

Conversely, private space, located within close proximity to the home and immediately adjacent to a doorway, generally acts as an extension of the home and serves to maintain close familial and social networks. These spaces are used for cooking, rest, adults’ games and childcare. Private spaces facilitate conversations and other activities that are private yet not intimate, serving as an intermediary space between the inside of the home and the semi-private, which in turn constitutes a transition between private and public space. Semi-private space serves as an extension of private space and is used for activities that require additional room or that otherwise engage public space, such as conducting business, washing clothes, bathing children and playing. Thus semi-private space protects the intimacy of the home while constituting a highly flexible, negotiated and liminal zone where the boundaries between the public and private are constantly in flux based on commonly recognised social norms of what activities are acceptable to pursue in public.

The edges between the private, semi-private, public and building edge, meanwhile, are defined both by spatial morphology and social norms. That is, edges are derived from activities and movements and by the shapes of open space produced by built form, i.e. the roof overhangs, porches and walls which define the spatial morphology of the site. Edges constitute boundary zones where permission is required to enter: strangers moving from public to semi-private and then towards private space are watched with increasing levels of scrutiny until they reach the edge, where they are greeted to ascertain the purpose of their visit. However, the edge is not as spatially distinct and fixed: instead, the movements of everyday life cross over the edges and between typologies of space, in rhythmic flows that reflect the interconnectedness of Monrovia as a complex assemblage of spatialities and mobilities.

Conclusions

Our rhythmanalysis of open space in Jallah Town has served to complicate any easy distinction between public and private space. Instead, open space in Jallah Town can best be understood as a ‘liminal’ threshold between the public and the private which serves multiple social yet private functions, facilitating the movements and encounters of bodies in the ‘manifold rhythms’ of the everyday (Mbembe and Nuttall, 2004: 360). These multiple and heterogeneous social and private functions, in turn, are made possible by the spatial heterogeneity and instability of this liminal space. The boundaries between private, semi-private and public space are porous and malleable, allowing social functions to shift across spatial typologies. And, further problematising dichotomous constructions of public space, our rhythmanalysis underscores how residents in Jallah Town purposefully developed open spaces with multiple functions. Even though this settlement is considered unplanned and hence irregular, its bricolage development has served residents’ needs, including the imperative of easy mobility to facilitate social encounters and the reproduction of everyday practices.

While our work has been informed by phenomenological perspectives associated with rhythmanalysis, we have coupled this approach with empirically rigorous spatial research into the everyday mobilities and rhythms of open space. In doing so, we have sought to contribute to the call for research in rhythmanalysis that is empirically grounded but yet, at the same time, accounts for the meanings of everyday rhythms and their implications for understanding the mobilities that characterise the African city. By presenting the everyday flows and movements in liminal spaces in Jallah Town based on rigorous empirical observations, we have sought to contribute to open space research in African studies by focusing our empirical analysis on the relationships between movements and built form, and exploring the use of space syntax analysis and GIS in conversation with phenomenological perspectives from rhythmanalysis.

Ultimately, we suggest that such integrated, empirically based yet phenomenologically inspired research on everyday mobilities can significantly inform urban planning and development practice. As Bayat (2009) points out, the daily struggles that shape life within informal settlements and create ‘new life and communities’ have been overlooked (Bayat, 2009: 13). Instead of capturing ‘the complexities of everyday life and the extent to which city residents negotiate urban spaces in their daily lives’ (Elsheshtawy, 2011: 6), urban planning typically draws on ideas emanating from the global North (Watson, 2009) in order to normalise spaces seen as ‘pathological’ (Kamete, 2012; see also Gandy, 2006). Our intent here, then, is to contribute to a better understanding of socio-spatialities which have been overlooked and made invisible in dichotomous theorising and ordering of African urbanism (Bertelsen et al., 2014). Through our charting of the mobilities and circulations ‘of the subaltern subjects and their various spatial negotiations within the city’ (Arabindoo, 2011: 640), we have arrived at an understanding of open space in Jallah Town as multifaceted and fractured, where ‘social relations criss-cross an intricate set of connections and flows stretching across multiple physical spaces’ (Arabindoo, 2011: 643) that disturb easy typologies of urban space and foreground the agency of residents in the city.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the residents of Jallah Town and Anna Dey for their generous support, and also acknowledge the invaluable contributions of four anonymous reviewers.

Funding

Robert Leon White Memorial Fund, School of Architecture, The University of Texas at Austin, USA.

Notes

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